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Cops Flagged Down Save Woman's Life With Roadside Naloxone, Heroin Overdose Treatment

(CBS Detroit) A dramatic, life-saving rescue by Michigan State Police played out near East Seven Mile and Gratiot Wednesday in Detroit.

Troopers were flagged down Wednesday by people who witnessed a woman suffering a medical problem.

"Troopers observed a female in a vehicle; she was unconscious, unresponsive, sweating profusely, and had labored breathing, which at one point ceased," police said in a press release.

Police determined that she was reacting to a heroin overdose--and gave her a nasal dose of naloxone, which can counter the often deadly effects of heroin.

She's currently recovering in the hospital. The woman told police it was her fifth overdose.

More police department across the country have started stocking naloxone, also known as narcon, in reaction to the growing heroin epidemic. Once used only by medical professionals, more and more it's a tool in the cop arsenal used to save lives in situations like this one shot on video in Detroit, where people in the throes of a drug overdose are spotted on the street.

There were recently 17 overdoses and one death on the streets of Akron, Ohio, in a 24-hour span.

"It's a huge problem in Akron, Ohio but it's also a huge problem across the United States," said Issacson. "There is not a community in southeast Michigan that hasn't been hit hard by the opiate abuse problems, that's including pain killers, like hydrcodone and oxycodone products as well as heroin," said Special Agent Rich Issacson with the DEA's Detroit field division.

 

 

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